


I Can't Have You

by prettybirdy979



Series: Trope Bingo Fills [16]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Forbidden Fruit, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/pseuds/prettybirdy979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> I want you though.</i>
</p>
<p>Sherlock can't have things or he'll hurt them. Doesn't mean he can't want them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Have You

**Author's Note:**

> For the Forbidden Fruit square on my trope bingo. Not sure if it quite fits but I think it does and that's what counts?

When Sherlock was six years old he found a puppy.

It was a dirty, struggling mess of a dog; stuck in a wire fence. Sherlock, with all his six year old intelligence, had freed the dog and taken it home. Smuggling it past the nanny, he’d locked it in his room and gone to the kitchen to get all his favourite snacks for his new friend. Arms loaded with cakes, cookies and chocolate stolen from Mycroft he had returned to his new friend.

He had kept the chocolate for himself but only because it was rude not to eat when everyone else was. Mummy said so.

Sherlock had kept that dog (named Canine because that’s what it _was_ ) in his room for a week before Mummy had found it.

She had taken the puppy from the kicking and screaming Sherlock.

‘Mummy, don’t take him. Please!’ He had begged, throwing himself at her legs.

‘You can’t take care of him, you can’t have him.’

‘But I love him!’

She had sighed. ‘I know darling. But you’re going to hurt him. That’s why I have to take him.’

Sherlock hadn’t spoken for a week. He had also locked the moral in his heart.

_You can’t have anything you love because then you’ll hurt it._

********

When he is thirty two, an army doctor follows him home.

Sherlock couldn’t help but think of his puppy, the moment he meets John’s eyes in the lab. It’s a stray thought, one he viciously deleted the moment it occurs. But it came back with a vengeance when he saw John standing innocently on the other side of the police tape, head cocked in the same way Canine had when he had peed on Sherlock’s socks.

Sherlock knows he shouldn’t touch. He hurts the things he loves so he can’t have them.

_I just won’t love you. I can have you if I don’t love you._

*********

John Watson is easy to love.

Not loving him would be hard even if he wasn’t. Sherlock doesn’t like being told what to do, even by his own mind sometimes. But John makes it too easy. He inserts himself into every part of Sherlock’s life and makes it seem like he’s always been there.

‘Tea Sherlock?’

Sherlock grunted in agreement, lost in thought. There’s no case but John hasn’t mentioned the body parts in the fridge for a week.

‘Sherlock, your hearts are leaking. Put them in a bag please.’

Sherlock looked up at this. John smiled and left the tea on the table. Sherlock watched him go and tried to ignore how his heart was beating faster.

_I can’t have you. I can’t have you. I can’t have you._

_I want you though._

********

Sherlock lost the battle with temptation the night Moriarty wraps John in explosives and only a phone call saves their lives. They came home and stood in their kitchen and looked at another. Just stared in disbelief.

John laughed first. Sherlock had joined in a moment later.

Somehow they had ended up standing right next to another and Sherlock had lost his hold on his feelings.

He kissed John.

John kissed him back.

Later, as he ran his hands over the thing he was never supposed to have Sherlock felt his heart sink.

_I’m going to hurt you. I’m not supposed to have you and I’m going to hurt you._

********

As he stood on the roof of St Barts and looked down at the man he’s not supposed to love, Sherlock’s heart broke at the pain he’s going to cause that is entirely his fault for breaking the most simple rule he’s ever had.

‘Goodbye John.’

_I’m sorry._


End file.
